name, Wally. They do. Lest the folks who worked with him would think he was putting on executive airs, he refused for years to have a secretary. He has one now, but anybody who wants to talk with the editor of the Digest has only to call Chappaqua 400 and ask for him; phone calls for Wallace are put through to him direct. T alk- ing with people both in his or- ':::":: j :' ganization and out of it, Wallace . ., ,::Li'" seems as persistent as Dr. Gallup in his quest for other people's opIn- ions. He is diffident about his own. Editors of other magazines have found that no matter what aspect of the publishing business they try to discuss with him, he usually hedges by saying, "\Vell, what do you think? You know more about these things than I do." This habit, according to one venerable editor, is more disconcerting than flattering. "There," he has said, "sits Wallace, the greatest editor the world has ever seen, asking me what I think. It's as crazy as EInstein asking a schoolboy how to han- dle fractions." Wallace once sent a Di- gest editor around the country to ask a number of prominent citizens to give their conception of a significant maga- zine article, and he also once made a rather ingenuous effort to engage a well-known author to hang around other important magazine editors to find out what was on their minds and relay it to him. That many of his colleagues are equally curious to know what is on his mind has apparently never occurred to Wallace. He just lacks the power to see himself as big as others see him. From South Dakota to Saudi Arabia, large segments of the human race are familiar with the Digest's format, but few people are familiar with Wallace's. This is mainly because Wallace doesn't like to have his picture taken. Several years ago, when Fortune was preparing an article about the Digest, Wallace for- bade its photographers to come nearer to him than the threshold of his office. "I'm not important," he kept saying. In the one authorized photograph of Wallace now in existence, the editor of the Di- gest, wearing a constrained smile, looks as theatrical and smooth as Herbert Marshall. Actually, he looks as plain and unpretentious as his magazine. He is tall, sturdy, and slightly stooped. He is gen- erallY'considered good-looking, but not in an imposing or bizarre way. His fea- tures are regular and his jaw is firm; he has receding, iron-gray hair, blue eyes of an indeterminate shade, and deep lines 34 1 ' l .."., ...... -..",.' _;:;"J.:... !.:_ ..-__ _ - . 4 ; ' "'-4," . ....;.... .' r-- ..' i /,:>':' ; ./'" running from his nose to his mouth. F or trips to the city he dresses with taste and, except for gay haberdashery, con- servatively. In the country he goes in for tweeds in winter and rayon slack suits and two-toned sports shoes in sum- mer. Like Luce, Wallace speaks halt- ingly and tends to give his auditors the uneasy feeling that he never quite says all he might, but he has little of Luce's austerity. "Wally isn't exactly a hail- fellow," a writer who has worked for both Luce and Wallace recently said, "but when you meet him on the street you feel like inviting him into a bar for a drink and a chat. With Luce, you say how do you do and keep moving." Wal- lace, more a sociable than a convivial drinker, frequently asks what his com- panion is having and then orders the same. His magazine has for years car- ried on a spirited anti-cigarette crusade, but he is a backslider who gets away with a couple of packs a day. Aside from its position on smokes, the Digest is a faithful image of its edi- tor. The truism that magazines, like children, reflect the men who beget and rear them has never been more sat- isfyingly illustrated than by the Digest. There is all the more reason for the re- semblance in this case, because Wallace not only conceived the magazine but, with his wife, also founded the enter- prise, has always edited it, and owns it outright. The Digest is Wallace's baby, and it reflects nearly everything about its father, from his capsulated social and economic opinions down to his taste in humor. Every once in a while the Digest comes out with a remarkably risqué joke. So does Wallace. "Wally likes jokes," a Digest editor recently ex- plained. "And they don't have to be Methodist jokes, either." Wallace is not a Methodist but a Presbyterian, the son of a rugged doctor of divinity . Wallace, who is rebellious to the point of not being a churchgoing man, nevertheless 1- ,: believes in the Golden Rule, in helping the deserving poor, and in promoting good works. He is full of good inten- tions. "He is a man," one of his literary friends once remarked, "of complete and bewildered good will," an appraisal that could describe, with equal clarity and charity, his journalistic offspring. Most people who talk to Wallace or read his magazine get the impression that this is not only the best of all possible worlds but also an astonishingly small one. Wallace's approach to the employ- ment problem in the postwar world, for example, is characteristically good- hearted and minuscule. He gave away $25,000 in prizes to Digest readers who con tribu ted ideas for small busi- nesses in which returning service men might set themselves up. Among the prize-winners were suggestions that veterans could earn a living by polish- ing floors, making dolls, selling second- hand baby furniture, and, if they had enough capital to buy a jeep, becom- ing delivery boys. The pl n, benevo- lent though possibly not entirely ade- quate, had a surface simplicity that appealed to Wallace, whose economic views are somewhat compressed. One of the most memorable industrial arti- cles the Digest has ever printed was a passionate attack on men who repair watches. Wallace's small-scale view of life is a priceless asset. It has made him a multi- millionaire and gained him recognition . , , H ' . 11 . h . d as a genIus. e s a genIus, a rIg t, an a greater genius than Hearst," an old and worldly friend of his once said. "He has a more perfect understanding of the herd mind. Wallace looks at the uni- verse constantly through the wrong end of the telescope, and so does the herd. He sees everything neat and tidy, and so do they. He knows what they want, and he lets them have it." How Wallace knows what the mass of humanity wants is a mystery, like Creation. The